A.B. Farquhar: Old Iron Pioneer
Farquhar decided early on to make a lot of money
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The 1922 Farquhar-style W farm traction engine, rated at 12 horsepower. Said to be "an up-to-date light steam tractor, designed to efficiently and economically handle general farm work. It is especially suited for driving Farquhar Vibrators [threshers] and will fill every requirement of the merchant thresherman." The machine had an 8-by-10-inch cylinder and weighed 15,000 pounds. The water tank held 110 gallons and the coal bunker held 400 pounds of fuel. The canopy top was optional. Speed on the road while moving from threshing job to bo was 2-1/2 mph.
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The Pennsylvania Agricultural Works, later known as the A.B. Farquhar Co., was long a fixture in York, Pa.
The company built threshing machines, steam traction engines and other farm machinery from Civil War times until after World War II.
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Arthur Briggs Farquhar was born Sept. 28, 1838, in Montgomery County, Md. His father was a Quaker school teacher and a civil engineer who helped build the first railroad from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
Young A.B., whose nickname (according to York native and history buff Bob Rauhauser) was “Polly,” received a good education, had an interest in mechanics and, by his own account, decided early on to make a lot of money.
Out to make a million dollars
A.B. wrote in his 1922 autobiography of a telling episode that occurred when he was 19, in 1858. He’d read in Harper’s Magazine about some of the rich and successful New York City men, and decided to go “straight to the horse’s mouth” for advice on how best to seek his fortune.
After a 15-hour stage coach, train and ferry boat trip from Maryland to New York City, the young man appeared at 8 one morning in the office of noted financier William B. Astor.
Somehow, he talked or forced his way past a dour old clerk to confront the Great Man himself. Astor brusquely asked the boy what he wanted, and when Farquhar replied, “I want to know how to make a million dollars,” the rich old man reportedly softened.
Astor asked, “Do you want to make yourself as miserable as I am and stay up all day and half the night trying to keep people from cheating you?” He told Farquhar in so many words that being rich wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Not convinced, Farquhar visited a prominent New York banker, who echoed Astor’s story, and then another banker and his associates, who advised the boy to “take care of your character and never break a promise.”
Hamilton Fish, another banker who was a former governor of New York and who later would be secretary of state under Ulysses S. Grant, told Farquhar if he always paid back any money he owed on the exact date it was due, no one would know but that he was worth a million.
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